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Teachers at public high schools in Windsor-Essex met with their union leaders to discuss the return of extra-curricular activities Monday night.

The Ontario Secondary Schools Teachers Federation's local president, Jeff Brosseau, told CBC News his members are acting in good faith.

However, he's cautioning students not to get too excited yet.

"I'm sure some of the students, as soon as they hear extra-curriculars are back, they're going to be really excited. But they also have to be realistic. Not everyone who coached last year or ran a club or ran the student parliament … they're not automatically going to do it again," Brosseau said.

"So, they have to recognize and, hopefully, accept the fact that those things might come back slowly — some faster than others — but they have to be patient.

"People need to see some results before they're ready to jump back in."

Public high school teachers and the Ontario government say they'll return to the bargaining table to work on their next contract.

On Monday, union president Ken Coran said it's entering a "new stage" with the provincial government and has agreed to resume extra-curricular activities, but it will be up to each individual teacher to decide how to act.

Coran said after meetings with new Premier Kathleen Wynne, he was optimistic that there was a "willingness" on the government's part to re-engage in a collective bargaining process.

Brosseau still described the situation as "not good."

"It's far better than it was, and people have to understand that for us to go forward with this measure of goodwill [the government] will hopefully give us an opportunity to go forward and actually bargain, which we have not had the opportunity to do," he said.

Karen Wang, a student trustee with the public school board in Windsor-Essex, said the past four months have been difficult because prom and sports are a big part of their high school careers.

"We know now that teachers are able to coach our sports to their discretion. So I'm just hoping that ... that they're willing to," Wang said.